Antonio Martín, president of the Association of Basketball Clubs (acb), was shaking when in the middle of the pandemic he called José Bogas, CEO of Endesa, one of the main financial supporters of the competition. With the sports suspension on the horizon, and therefore the suspension of income, he picked up the phone to check if the sponsorship of the energy company, which he had started in 2011, was still in place. “The response of support was immediate. I will never forget it in my life. I don’t know what would have happened to the League,” Martín recalled on April 18 in a momentous moment for the future of national basketball. The renewal of the company’s alliance with basketball until 2027 was presented, which began 13 years ago and includes the main competitions, men’s and women’s, and all the teams of the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB).
The relationship between the sponsor, the acb and the FEB has grown in a way that transcends the purely commercial. “It is a case of success based on understanding, which is an asset in times of noise,” Bogas, the Endesa helmsman who extended his hand to Martín in those days of uncertainty, now endorses. “The most symbolic and descriptive thing is when you have an agreement and the contract does not need to be looked at. “It doesn’t come out of the drawer,” summarizes Martín. A seamless trust. In the heat of this sponsorshipone of the oldest in national sport, Spanish basketball has flourished: medals year after year, records in federation licenses, new competitions and consolidation of supportive and inclusive values that include all athletes.
A sporting and social success
Reposition the company. Give it a spin, find freshness. This is what Endesa intended in 2011, the year in which the union was conceived, as María Lacasa, its Director of Brand and Sponsorships, explains: “Basketball transmitted (and transmits) differential values compared to other sports. We found it to be the perfect travel companion.” These were happy times for this sport in Spain, which was celebrating international titles, such as the EuroBasket in 2009 and 2011, and whose Endesa League was already the second best in the world, only behind the NBA.
Pepu Hernández was one of those who opened that golden era. Coach of the team that won the 2006 World Cup in Japan, the title that changed the course, the coach has seen how in the last decade and a half the Spanish game, dynamic and joyful, has become a reference. “Basketball in itself is evolution, but these last 13 years have been the consolidation of a style,” he says. And how basketball has also hooked society with its unique demonstrations of brotherhood and openness: no one forgets the Gasols playing pocha at hotel rallies, the Hernangómezs vacillating among themselves or the team celebrating tournaments as if they were family. The Family: a hard-earned nickname.
“’Nothing is artificial here’, the motto of the Endesa league, seems very appropriate to me for our basketball, where things are natural and nothing is forced. Our habitat is the safest, healthiest, educated and most formative. And for people I hope it continues to be attractive and competitive, of course, but always with values,” Hernández develops.
Since 2013, Spain has not stopped winning medals. Not a single year without metal, 83 in the last decade. In all categories. Elisa Aguilar, former player and current president of the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB), who when the sponsorship was signed was competing in what would be her last championship with the national team, highlights two milestones: the women’s U-19 silver in the 2023 World Cup and the men’s under-19 gold in the same tournament.
That year Spain would reach number one in the FIBA rankings. “Without the economic boost received (100 million investment in these 13 years) it would be impossible to understand each other right now. This symbiosis between a brand and a sport is an exceptionality of which we should feel very proud,” he points out.
The product is increasingly “more attractive” and lives in “constant technological innovation,” Aguilar understands. Already in 2014, the Endesa League was a pioneer in introducing video mapping in the Wizink Center, a system to project animations on real surfaces. Continuous improvements in broadcasting and the renovation of sports facilities have progressively been added. Plus the amplifying effect of social networks: “It is the main change, and its impact is total on fans, professionals and states of opinion,” says Pedro Martínez, coach of BAXI Manresa and one of the 13 coaches and players active during the 13 years of Endesa sponsorship. “Basketball is the sport with the most emotional impacts for spectators and followers of the teams.” Some advances that have raised the quality and attractiveness of the competition. “They facilitate the performance of the players and project a much more entertaining product for the public,” Aguilar resumes.
Transform what is close
Everyone should be able to do anything. And even more so if what you want is to practice a sport. This is what Berni Rodríguez, former player, world champion in 2006 and protagonist of the definitive takeoff of Spanish basketball, believes: “We were part of the change to the modern game with our way of being, of competing. Without being aware of it,” he explains.
Now he works to transform things off the field, the most immediate, those that surround him. He is the promoter of SuperBasket, a project supported by Endesa whose essence is “simple, but complicated at the same time”: making boys and girls with functional diversity feel part of a team. “What strikes me most (about what basketball achieves) is, in addition to the visible physical evolution, the brutal increase in the feeling of belonging to a space, a group.”
This initiative is joined by others that have grown within the umbrella of the triple agreement, like Basket Girlz, which questions the causes of premature abandonment of sport and seeks to remedy them; either the Endesa Heart Leaguewhich promotes the integration of vulnerable groups.
Basketball, with its players, clubs and fans, is the main beneficiary of this alliance, but not the only one. The return is reciprocal, explains María Lacasa, from Endesa: “We do studies to measure the impact of basketball on our reputation and we know that those people who remember the support we provide have a more positive image of the company.” And she illustrates with an anecdote this beautiful and unique fusion between brands, between ideas: “A colleague told us that her five-year-old son at school had to explain the profession of her parents. When she went to tell what her mother, who works at Endesa, did, she said: ‘my mother is the electrician for the Endesa League.’
